As the title of this entry says in guarani, "I'm living the good life". I just completed my 4 month work report that gets sent to Washington DC to assure them that I am not just chillin out in my hammock all day. Reflecting on the last 4 months made me realize that I really have accomplished a lot. Granted, the majority of that time was spent trying to integrate into my community, but that in itself is no easy feat. I would say it's probably the hardest part of being a peace corps volunteer. To me, successfully integrating means that I have adopted enough of their culture to be considered normal. I'm still that crazy blonde who has no family here, cooks weird food, talks funny, and who has bruises all over her body because she attempts to do man's work. BUT, I think I have gained my community's trust and I really do have a lot of people who care about me. I attempt to speak Guarani whenever I can, and they respect that. My old host mom now speaks to me only in guarani which means a lot to me because in the beginning she said to me, "You don't know any guarani. If you can't speak our language, how are we going to work together?" And now she is the president of my Fogon Comission and we are working together just fine. :)
I have been a very busy bee these days. I just finished a 4 week charla series about nutrition with all the high school students. We learned about the importance of a balanced diet by analyzing the food pyramid, about vitamin and mineral deficiencies in paraguay, basic nutrition facts (like you must eat fruit to maintain your health), and how to make milk from soy beans. Almost all of this was brand new material for the students. They've never heard of Spinach before and had no idea which foods contain calcium, let alone the other vitamins and minerals we talked about. I think they enjoyed my lessons and I hope they learned something. I had some issues with classroom management (as this is my first time teaching), but I had a few tricks up my sleeve to deal with the trouble makers. I also have issues with the 15-18 year old boys in my classes. They're completely obnoxious and inappropriate, but i guess that's what you get for being the only blonde haired person nearby. On the other hand, the elementary school kids are amazing. I walk in the classroom, and everyone stops what they're doing to listen to what I have to say. It's really a pleasure teaching them and I know they're learning new things for sure. This week I will be finishing up 4 weeks of dental health charlas. We covered why teeth are important, how to brush properly, how to use floss (because none of these kids have ever used it before), foods that are good and bad for your teeth, how a cavity forms, and this week we'll start fluoride treatments. All 84 students now have their own labeled toothbrush with a sample toothpaste tube in their classrooms and they brush every single day at school. They also each got a dental floss and I constantly see kids using it. A big thanks goes to Dr. Stone, who donated all of these materials.
Nothing too new with the Fogon (brick oven) commission. We just had another meeting yesterday, and we finalized the paperwork to hand in to the municipality. There are 20 people on the commission who will eventually get fogones. This Saturday, the commission is hosting a party to raise money for the cause.
My favorite project thus far has been teaching english. I was so hesitant to start classes because quite frankly, I was not at all interested. However, a few persistent kids got me to give in and thank god I did. I started with 2 students and now have 45. I teach 2 classes every Wed and Fri for an hour each. We have class right at my house and I use the side of my house as a chalkboard and it erases perfectly! We've learned greetings, a couple verbs, some adjectives, numbers, and animals so far. The kids are between the ages of 7-16 and the 10-11 year old age group is definitely learning the fastest which I found interesting. There's some who are learning rapidly; I can already have a conversation with them, and others much slower. However, everyone is so interested and really putting in a lot of effort. In my opinion, it's also boosting their self-esteem because I'm all about positive reinforcement, and giving them a different perspective on how one can learn. Their classes in the school are ridiculous. If the teacher shows up, she or he usually writes a million words on the chalkboard, and leaves while the students are told to copy what it says in their notebooks. Literally, that is what school is here. At least in the english class, we play games and have a lot of active participation which they are responding really well to.
I also went to a Peace Corps sponsored HIV/AIDS workshop with one of the nurses, Lourdes, from my community health post. My boss had to call them up and get her permission to come, but I am SO thankful he did. The doctor at my health post had previously told me that they don't want me to teach about sexuality or anything regarding sex in the high school because the parents will get mad. He said that since homosexual marriage was legalized in argentina, the parents have been worried that it'll happen here and so they're way of dealing with it is to not talk about it at all. First of all, I don't really see the relationship between homosexuality and teaching about safe-sex, hiv/aids, and STIs. Early teen pregnancy and the spread of STIs is a mojor problem in my community and instead of educating about prevention, they want to just forget about talking about it altogether??? That's ridiculous! Anyway, at the workshop we learned about how to teach about it using didactic materials, statistics in paraguay, discrimination, transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Two people living with HIV came and told us their story which I think was extremely eye-opening to all the paraguayans in attendance. When we got back from the workshop, Lourdes sent me a text that said, "Come to the health post, we're going to plan a charla to give to the parents." I went and had a meeting with the 3 nurses and doctor and we discussed that we will first present all the information we learned at the workshop to the parents, see what they have to say about it, and then begin charlas in the high school about less controversial topics such as self-esteem, values, and gender equality. Later on in my service, I will hopefully have the permission of the parents to start teaching about sex. We'll see how everything turns out!
Well, this is getting extremely long, so I will stop for now. Sorry it's been so long since I last updated. In general, things here are great and I feel like I am right where I need to be. I love my work here, even though I have some days where I'd much rather be at home spending time with my family and friends, and NEW NEWPHEW!!!!, but I know that these people really need me and I need them. I am learning so much about another culture, different people, and about myself. This is the only experience I will ever have like this and I fully intend to make the most of it.
chaocito!
